Open Country (29 page)

No response.

“Guess I’ll have to let him go then.” He started for the door.

“What about the dog?”

Hank stopped and turned back. “What dog?” When Charlie didn’t answer, he lost patience. “Charlie, talk to me. Now! What dog?”

“The one in the barn.” Having finally broken his sullen silence, words came tumbling out in a shaky rush. “He’s just a pup and he’s got no one to look after him and he’s so scared . . .” His voice trailed off. He stared at the floor again.

Hank waited to see if the boy would say more. When he didn’t, he motioned for him to rise. “Show me.”

It took some hunting before they found the dog in one of the stalls. It was a pitiful little thing, a half-starved stray with a lame front foot and an attitude every bit as defensive as Charlie’s. Yet Charlie seemed unafraid, and despite the dog’s bared teeth and warning growls, he knelt before the shivering animal and held out his hand.

“It’s all right, boy,” he said in a soft, soothing voice. “He’s gone. No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”

Hank watched the dog cower against the slatted wall, eyes wary. “Who hurt him, Charlie?”

“Pup wasn’t doing anything. He was just afraid, that’s all. When Amos went to grab him, Pup snapped at him. But he didn’t hurt him, I swear. Pup never even touched him. But Amos jumped up and tried to kick him. So I shoved him.” Charlie leaned closer then jerked back when the dog snapped, hackles rising. “Why is he so mad?”

Hank wasn’t blind to the parallels between the dog’s lack of trust and Charlie’s. He wondered if there was a way he could use it. Hunkering down beside his stepson, he said, “He doesn’t trust you.”

“But I wouldn’t hurt him. Can’t he see that?”

“Trust is earned, Charlie. Show him you’re not a threat to him. Don’t crowd him. And maybe he’ll lose some of his fear.”

“You think so?”

Hank studied the animal for signs of illness or damage. He saw no foam around the mouth, no blood, no crust at the nose and eyes. Just a rail-thin, scared dog that probably needed this boy as much as the boy needed him. “It’ll take patience and persistence and a lot of work. Think he’s worth it?”

Charlie’s glare told Hank what he thought of that question.

“Well, you started this, so you finish it.” Hank rose, hoping he was doing the right thing and he wasn’t setting the boy up for another disappointment or loss. “If you can heal him in body and spirit, I think he’ll make a fine companion.”

“Really? I can keep him?” Charlie looked up, his scowl transformed into a wide grin. It was the first smile he’d ever given Hank and a wondrous thing it was.

“He’s yours,” Hank said. “So what do you plan to do with him?”

Charlie’s mouth twisted from side to side as he thought about it. “I guess I should feed him first. Do you think Iantha or Consuelo have some scraps?”

“I expect they do.”

“And he’ll need a bed. Something warm.” He shot Hank a hopeful look. “Unless you think he could sleep in my room?”

“Let’s let him get used to you first,” Hank hedged. “He seems comfortable here. Maybe you could make this stall his pen for a while.”

“What about a blanket?”

“I bet he’d like that.”

“And a name.” Charlie thought it over, then nodded. “You’re going to be my buddy,” he told the dog. “So that’s what I’ll call you. Buddy. You like that, boy?”

Lowering his head to his outstretched paws, the exhausted animal watched them with unblinking black eyes.

“Look. He’s not shivering anymore. I think he likes it.”

“I think you’re right.” Hank hesitated. “Charlie?”

Tearing his attention from the dog, the boy looked up.

“What you did—taking on a bigger boy to protect this dog—that was a good thing. A brave thing, son. I’m proud of you.”

Charlie looked away, that telltale flush inching up his cheeks and turning the tips of his ears red. But Hank saw his pleased grin, and for the first time, he felt like a father.

“But no more fighting. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Resisting the urge to ruffle the boy’s red brown hair, Hank opened the stall door. “I’ll be back shortly.”

As he closed the latch behind him, Charlie said softly, “You don’t need to fire him, Papa-Hank. Amos isn’t mean. He’s just afraid of dogs.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He found Amos sitting on his bunk, a worried look on his face. As soon as he saw Hank in the doorway, he jumped to his feet and started talking as fast as he could get the words out.

“I didn’t mean to hit Charlie, Mr. Hank. He startled me is all, shoving me like that. I won’t do it again, I swear it. Sir.”

Hank stopped at the foot of the bunk and studied the stammering boy. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, big for his age and gangly. A thatch of wheat-colored hair and a chipped front tooth made him seem younger, and with that anxious look in his blue eyes, younger still. “And the dog, Amos?”

A moment of confusion, as if he’d forgotten, then the boy blurted out, “The cur went to bite me, Mr. Hank. I didn’t do nothing but try to pet him, and he comes at me, snarling like he had the rabies.”

“So you kicked him?”

“Not to hurt him. Just to get him away. I knew a man once who caught the rabies, and a terrible thing it was. He scared me, is all. Sir.”

Hank studied the fidgeting boy but saw no meanness in him, only a lack of experience and an earnest desire to please. Sort of a pup himself. “We don’t kick dogs here.” He thought of Penny and bit back a smile. “Or cats.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Since this is your first misstep, and because Charlie admitted he swung first, I’ll go light on you this time.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Bathe.”

“W-What?”

“You smell like a goat. Bathe. That’s your punishment. But if I hear of one more misstep, you and I are going to the woodshed. Understand?”

Some of the color faded from the boy’s flushed cheeks. “Yes, sir.” “Head on over to the washhouse then.”

A long sigh. “Yes, sir.”

That night, the children ate early and went upstairs to work on Christmas gifts, so after a blessedly quiet supper, the adults retired to the great room for drinks and coffee.

The storm Buck had predicted was hung up on the peaks of the mountains, gray ominous clouds churning fitfully as though anxious to sweep down the slopes. But inside, the house was warm and cozy, scented with the sharp woodsy tang of the Christmas tree and the boughs Molly and Jessica had draped over the mantle.

Hank noticed that Molly seemed as thrilled as the children about all the Christmas doings, which made him wonder what Christmases with her father had been like, or if they’d even celebrated the season. There was so much about his wife he didn’t know, and it seemed every piece he added to the puzzle only opened the way for a dozen more.

He had his concerns about their marriage. In many ways, they seemed strangers. In other ways, the connection between them was so strong he felt like he’d known her forever. Whatever happened in the past, he wanted it to be right this time. No doubts, no unanswered questions. They were bound together, and the wedding ring he’d bought that was waiting under the Christmas tree was his way of showing her that’s how he felt and how it was going to be. Hopefully her gift to him would be along the same lines. But involving fewer clothes.

“Does the wind e’er stop blowing in this ice bowl?” Dougal muttered, standing as close to the fire as he could. “I canna feel me own arse nae more.”

“Oh, it’s there,” Brady mumbled. “We heard evidence of that earlier.”

“Gentlemen,” Jessica chided gently without looking up from her sewing.

Dougal opened his mouth to say something more then caught sight of Consuelo moving past the open door into the kitchen. Immediately he perked up. “Mayhap a bit ’o warm milk might take the chill off these old bones,” he said, starting across the room.

“The man’s incorrigible,” Jessica said, watching him scamper into the kitchen.

“If that means randy old goat, you’re right,” Brady agreed.

Lifting his right arm, Hank draped it along the back of the couch where he and Molly sat. “They don’t have snowstorms in Scotland?”

“Yes, certainly,” Jessica said. “But rarely ones of such violence.”

Brady rolled his cut-glass tumbler in his palms to warm the whiskey, then tossed back the last swallow. “Buck said give it a day or two then bar the doors.” He set the glass carefully on the tiny pedestal table by his overstuffed chair. “Says we’ll definitely have a snowy Christmas.”

“Penny’s worried Saint Nick won’t make it if we have another blizzard.” While he spoke, Hank gently stroked the nape of Molly’s neck. She had the softest skin, warm and growing warmer as a flush crept up her throat and spread across the curve of her high cheekbones. He was anxious to see if the rest of it was as soft. And warm. And—

“Papa-Hank,” came a high-pitched shout from the entry stairwell.

Penny
. With a sigh, Hank let his hand drop to the back of the couch.

Tiny footfalls clattered on the stairs. Then more footfalls, so many they sounded like a herd of calves racing across hard ground.

“Papa-Hank!”

Hank glanced at Molly. “Hadn’t you better see what she wants?” “She’s calling for you, not me.”

“Kid sure seems taken with you,” Brady observed. “Charlie too.”

Hank wondered why he sounded surprised. He was their stepfather. Why wouldn’t they be taken with him?

Penny rounded the corner, legs churning. “Papa-Hank, Papa-Hank!”

Charlie raced after her, trailed by Ben, then both panting Garcia sisters, one of whom held a thrashing Abigail.

Jesus.
A full-out frontal assault. Hank braced himself, lowering his left arm with its hard protective cast over his unprotected lap.

“Ben says Charlie got a dog!” Penny shouted, coming to a stop at Hank’s knees. “Where is it? Can I see it? How come I don’t have a dog?”

“A dog?” Molly turned her head to look at him. “What dog?”

Hank felt the beginnings of a headache. “Well, I—”

“My word!” Jessica cried out. “Charlie, what happened to your poor face?”

For a moment all eyes went to Charlie, who stood red faced and frozen by the sudden attention.

“He was fighting,” Molly said, sending another hard look in Hank’s direction.

“Hell of a mouse you got there, Charlie,” Brady said, admiring the purple bruise under the boy’s right eye.

“You should see Amos,” Hank said proudly.

Charlie grinned and stared at his shoes.

“Fighting isn’t funny,” Molly told her nephew.

“No, ma’am.”

Brady winked at Charlie. Jessica scowled at both of them. Hank’s headache settled like a cap over his skull.

“I want a dog too!” Penny shouted, climbing into Hank’s lap to resume the battle. “Why can’t I have a dog?”

“You’re too little for a dog, Penny,” Charlie said.

“What dog?” Molly asked again.

“I’m not little!” Penny poked Hank’s chest. “Tell him, Papa-Hank!”

“Now, Penny—” Hank began, before Molly shouted him down.

“Children! Enough!”

“But I want a dog!” Penny wailed, too far into the fray to retreat now. “Or a kitty. Where’s my kitty? You said I could have a kitty, Papa-Hank.”

Molly rounded on him, clearly as out of patience with him as with the children. “A kitty? First a dog, and now a cat? When did you tell her she could have a cat?”

Hank rubbed his fingertips against his temple. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember? How can you not remember promising a cat to a child?”

“Hell, I don’t even remember my own wedding,” he muttered.

“That’s because you were asleep, Papa-Hank. Mrs. Beckworth told me all about it.” Tipping her head back, Penny glared up at him. “And you were wearing your dress,” she added in a tone of contempt only a six-year-old could get away with.

“It wasn’t a dress,” Hank said wearily. “It was a nightshirt. How many times do I have to tell you . . .” Words died as realization struck.

Asleep?
Why had he been asleep at his own wedding? He turned his head to find Molly staring at him. “What’s she talking about?”

She stared back at him, color fading from her face, her eyes round and full of dread.

And in that instant he knew. It was as if a floodgate had crashed open in his mind, and all those niggling doubts that had pestered him for weeks came pouring in.

It wasn’t real. They weren’t married. She wasn’t really his wife, and these weren’t his stepchildren.

A red mist formed behind his eyes. His head pounded so hard he could hardly move or breathe or think. He looked at the faces staring back at him—Molly, Jessica, Brady. They knew. They all knew. They let him think his memory was faulty when they knew it wasn’t. They let him think his mind was damaged.
Why?

“Hank,” Brady said.

Hank looked at him and saw the truth in his eyes. “You sonofabitch.”

“Hank, please,” Jessica said softly. “The children.”

With jerky movements, Hank lifted Penny from his lap and set her on the floor, a distant part of him amazed that he could still function despite the chaos in his mind. “Go upstairs.”

“But what about my kitty?” Penny asked, her voice starting to wobble.

“Not now, Penny. Charlie, take your sister upstairs.”

“But I want my—”

“Now!” he thundered.

In round-eyed silence, Charlie led his protesting sister from the room, trailed by the Garcias with Brady’s children.

As their footsteps faded up the stairwell, Brady’s voice cut through the tense silence. “Hank, it’s not what you think.”

Hank looked at him, too furious to speak.